From the Pharaohs of the past to the United Arab Republic of today, Egypt's agriculture has been subjected to many different forms of political control and organization. These essays draw on a plethora of documentary and archaeological evidence to study and compare such patterns of agricultural exploitation across historical periods (including Ptolemaic, Roman, and Ottoman times).

Presents a survey of the most important aspects of life in Egypt under Roman domination, from the conquest by Octavian in 30 BC to the third century AD, as they emerge from the micro-level of the Egyptian papyri and inscriptions, but also from the ancient literary sources, and from the most important archaeological discoveries.

Within the democratisation literature, opposition unity is widely seen as an important requisite to successfully pressure authoritarian rulers into liberalising reforms and in bringing about democratic change. Taking up on this theme, this book examines the myriad ways in which opposition groups across the Arab world have sought to coalesce into broader reform coalitions at the local, national and transnational levels to challenge authoritarian incumbents and their policies. Drawing on original case studies from the region, it sheds light on the diverse nature and objectives of these reform coalitions, and explores the challenges opposition groups face in Arab states in uniting behind a common reform agenda and in driving this agenda forward. Be they electoral pacts, local government coalitions, broader opposition alliances or networks of resistance, this book demonstrates that, although widespread, the record of collective opposition activism in the Arab world is mixed, with many reform coalitions lacking the necessary cohesion and mass appeal to effectively mobilise for change. This book was originally published as a special issue of British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

Means of Transmission and Cultural Interaction : Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project, Held in Innsbruck, Austria, October 3rd-8th 2002

This volume forms the proceedings of the Fifth Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project held in Innsbruck in 2002. Twenty-nine specialist contributions focus on the economic aspects of the `diffusion and transformation of the cultural heritage of the ancient Near East'. Eight thematic sections discuss: Near Eastern economic theory; Mesopotamia in the third millenium BC; Mesopotamia and the Levant in the first half of the first millennium BC; Levant, Egypt and the Aegean world during the same time span; Greece and Achaemenids, Parthians, Sasanians and Rome; social aspects of this exchange, including its affects on religion, borders, education and cosmology. The scope of the papers is wide, with subjects including Babylonian twin towns and ethnic minorities, archaic Greek aristocrats, the Phoenicians and the birth of a Mediterranean society, slavery, Iron Age Cyprus, Seleucid coins, the `Silk Route', and Greek images of the Assyrian and Babylonian kingdoms. Sixteen papers in English, the rest in German.

Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity, the first major study of its kind, presents a critique of Weber's influential ideas about late antiquity. Jairus Banaji collects together a vast range of evidence to show that the fourth to seventh centuries were a period of major social and economic change, bound up with an expanding circulation of gold. The author traces the evolution of a new aristocracy in the eastern Mediterranean, and discusses the implications of its involvement in the monetary and business economy of the period. - ;The economy of the late antique Mediterranean is still largely seen through the prism of Weber's influential essay of 1896. Rejecting that orthodoxy, this book argues that the late empire saw substantial economic and social change, propelled by the powerful stimulus of a stable gold coinage that circulated widely. In successive chapters Dr Banaji adduces fresh evidence for the prosperity of the late Roman countryside, the expanding circulation of gold, the restructuring of agrarian elites, and the extensive use of paid labour, above all in the period spanning the fifth to seventh centuries. The papyrological evidence is scrutinised in detail to show that a key development entailed the rise of a new aristocracy whose estates were immune to the devastating fragmentation of partible inheritance, extensively irrigated, and responsive to market opportunities.The study offers a new perspective on the still largely contested issues of the use and control of labour, arguing that the East Mediterranean saw a considerable expansion of wage employment. A concluding chapter defines the more general issue raised by the aristocracy's involvement in the monetary and business economy of the period. Exploiting a wide range of sources, Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity weaves together different strands of historiography (Weber, Mickwitz, papyrology, agrarian history) into a fascinating interpretation that challenges the minimalist orthodoxies about late antiquity and the ancient economy. - ;The argument is complex, but well presented, and will be of keen interest to all scholars and graduate students engaged in the study of the economy in late antiquity. - Religious Studies Review;This thoughtful major study offers a revolutionary perspective on the economy in late antiquity. - Religious Studies Review;This work is indispensable. - Greece & Rome

The discipline of Egyptology has been criticized for being too insular, with little awareness of the development of archaeologies elsewhere. It has remained theoretically underdeveloped. For example the role of Ancient Egypt within Africa has rarely been considered jointly by Egyptologists and Africanists. Egypt's own view of itself has been neglected; views of it in the ancient past, in more recent times and today have remained underexposed. Encounters with Ancient Egypt is a series of eight books which addresses these issues. The books interrelate, inform and illuminate one another and will appeal to a wide market including academics, students and the general public interested in archaeology, egyptology, anthropology, architecture, design and history. This book addresses some of the main themes of the study of Egypt during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In a combination of case studies and discursive chapters, the status of Egypt as an important example of traditional Orientalist scholarship, and as an ancient model of imperialism itself, is examined. Contributions range from studies of nineteenth century antiquarianism, and the collecting of Egyptian antiquities as an extension of the territorial ambitions and rivalries of the European powers, to explorations of how Egypt is understood and interpreted in contemporary societies. Views of Ancient Egypt also considers the way in which Ancient Egypt has been adopted by less privileged members of some societies as a cultural icon of past greatness.

Written to accompany an exhibition at the Moesgard Museum in Aarhus, Denmark in 2003-2004, this handsome volume describes the culture and civilization of the region south of Cairo on the upper Nile River. Scholars from Denmark, Egypt, France, the UK, and the Netherlands contributed chapters.

The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity offers an innovative overview of a period (c. 300-700 CE) that has become increasingly central to scholarly debates over the history of western and Middle Eastern civilizations. This volume covers such pivotal events as the fall of Rome, the rise of Christianity, the origins of Islam, and the early formation of Byzantium and the European Middle Ages. These events are set in the context of widespread literary, artistic, cultural, and religious change during the period. The geographical scope of this Handbook is unparalleled among comparable surveys of Late Antiquity; Arabia, Egypt, Central Asia, and the Balkans all receive dedicated treatments, while the scope extends to the western kingdoms, and North Africa in the West. Furthermore, from economic theory and slavery to Greek and Latin poetry, Syriac and Coptic literature, sites of religious devotion, and many others, this Handbook covers a wide range of topics that will appeal to scholars from a diverse array of disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity engages the perennially valuable questions about the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the medieval, while providing a much-needed touchstone for the study of Late Antiquity itself.

The Mediterranean Context of Early Greek History reveals the role of the complex interaction of Mediterranean seafaring and maritime connections in the development of the ancient Greek city-states. Offers fascinating insights into the origins of urbanization in the ancient Mediterranean, including the Greek city-state Based on the most recent research on the ancient Mediterranean Features a novel approach to theories of civilization change - foregoing the traditional isolationists model of development in favor of a maritime based network Argues for cultural interactions set in motion by exchange and trade by sea